


home

by zoellick



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Introspection, Pre-Canon, Siblings, eldest daughter syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoellick/pseuds/zoellick
Summary: gwen, at home, doing chores as a daughter should
Relationships: Elyan & Gwen (Merlin), Gwen & Leon (Merlin), Gwen & Tom (Merlin)
Kudos: 2





	home

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written anything in so long it feels so foreign now lol
> 
> anyway i just love pre-canon and have lots of thoughts abt the characters, it would be cool to know more about their lives before the show tbh

Gwen watched from the door, silent. From a young age she had learnt the art of obedience. How to act in such a way that it seemed natural, as if every bone in her body was aching to be good, to be kind. In reality, her gut wanted to control her, to make her scream havoc and tear apart their threadbare house. But with her mother gone and Elyan always starting a fight, Gwen found that she had to be the mature one of the family. So, she squashed her own headstrong ways to become the perfect daughter.

But she did it _because_ she cared. All she had was her family and everything that mattered to her was in that rundown place, as cold it was in the winter and smelly it was in the summer. This was her home and that was all that mattered.

Women were supposed to have a sense of home, a sense of comfort. A mother’s love, she had heard it be called, like the words were a sprinkle of joy or even a prayer. To Gwen they held nothing but misery. Misery because of a mother who never loved her and the mother she would inevitably become. Her dad talked about that sometimes, how Gwen would swell up like a loaf of bread and pop out child after child after child. Being only a child herself, the words were more of a nightmare than a blessing. She had a vision of her in white, married off to that sleaze of a servant she worked with, forced to bear his children and be his wife until death do them part. She shuddered.

“Nothing I do is good enough!” Elyan yelled, fingers clenched so tightly in his fist they were turning white. Her dad couldn’t look him in the eye, in fact he hadn’t been able to for months now. Gwen wasn’t sure of the details herself, but the cold dinners they shared had been slowly sucking the air out of her lungs. This family didn’t feel so warm anymore.

Her dad’s shoulders twitched- halfway between a shrug and a tremor. “That’s not true.” The protest was weak, as weak as his spirit had been since their first argument. Gwen thought it was like he had just given up on her brother, like he didn’t know what to do with him. Maybe if Gwen had learnt a little quicker, she could have kept Elyan in line. Made him stay at his job in the stables and none of this would have happened.

Gwen was twice the woman her mother was, yet it still wasn’t enough to stop her family falling to shreds.

With a deep breath, she closed the door to, humming to herself to drown out the sounds of them arguing. The morning air nipped at her as she lugged out the bath. The drunkard who lived across the way raised a bottle to her in greeting. She smiled politely and wished him a good morning. Maybe if she were a better person, she would have gone to fetch some water for him to bathe in. Instead, she sat on her porch and scrubbed at a week’s load of dirty clothes, humming all the while.

The song had been one Leon’s nanny had taught her one day. She was an old woman with grey hair neatly pulled back into a bun, with a white cap pulled over her head. A few wisps of hair would come loose in the day- the messier she looked, the more her patience was wearing thin, Gwen always thought. But the woman took somewhat of a shine to Gwen, just a daughter of a servant. Took her under her wing. “This is what young ladies ought to be like,” she’d tell Gwen, bouncing her on her lap and teaching her the ways of the world. When Gwen was really little, she thought the nanny must have been of noble birth.

She attended the funeral when she passed. It was just her and the priest and Leon. What other family she might have had had long since passed. Once the body had been taken away, Gwen tied a bunch of posies to a large elm, pretending that it was the woman’s grave.

The raised voices could still be heard from outside. The walls were thin and rotting, and Elyan could really yell when he wanted to. Her dad wasn’t like that. He was calmer, quiet. His anger permeated in his eyes and tone, rather than volume. Elyan’s fire, well, that was certainly from their mother. She had always been a screecher with sharp words and claws. Gwen scrubbed the tunic a little too aggressively, and the water splashed over the rim, soaking her hems. It was too cold to be doing this so early- her fingers were red and raw from the icy water. It was too cold, but she had little time to go about her own chores as well as those in the castle. It paid to be good, she reminded herself. Maybe in two years or so she would be the maid to someone important, someone who might give her nicer clothes or scraps of food. Maybe Leon would have a wife who needed to be seen to.

When she was a little girl, she thought Leon would be her husband. But that thought was long forgotten. It was childish fancy, nothing that could ever happen in the real world. She was barely a chambermaid, sweeping floors all day. It just wasn’t how society worked, no matter how close friends they were. Leon had real potential in Camelot. His birth allowed it. Besides, he was really too old for her, older than her brother, even. When she let herself think of marriage, it wasn’t about that boy in the stables who offered her a daisy. It wasn’t even someone like Leon who would protect her as a man ought to. No, she wanted someone simple, someone kind. Someone who knew the real her, someone who could make her grin and laugh and let her rest a while.

Gwen bit her lip. It was wrong of her to dream of a different life. She had to take care of her family, and romance didn’t really play a role in that. She would be a good daughter to a father who loved her, and a good sister to a brother who needed her. So, all Gwen had to do was excel in her chores and work. The reward would come in the form of a heavy loaf and thick broth.

She smiled. A dog was whining a few yards away. The house behind her was quiet.

All would be as it should.


End file.
